: Every commercial composite kayak model I can think of has the "forced
: sheer" as well, though. You have to join the deck and hull somewhere
: and somehow!

a simple example is a rotomould process. no forced sheer. And we do have to join the yak somewhere, but not necessary at a deck and hull. Don't get me wrong, as its useless to just about all yaks and is pointless unless there is a design reason for it .

A partial example of this is the guillemot you just finished. I regard one of its nice aesthetic design points is the low dipping sheer line - ie it's not kept high like most other yaks so you get a nice low long dipping curve. Altho it joins on a marked sheerline, building would most likely be much more floppy and possibly too difficult to achieve with an external approach when the unrestrained shallow hull is removed from the external bracing and the 'deck' applied to the weak hull -espec as one lengthened it. So I would say the internal approach has given him more freedom. And I also recall one yak that nick made where the a decorative line went thru the shear - is it on his book? Also tricky to contemplate to do on an external approach.

-mick